March 25, 2026
Guest Performer
Gregory Burns
Gregory Burns is a Paralympic gold medalist, Olympic artist, and global speaker on resilience and creativity whose life demonstrates how limitations can become a catalyst for human potential.
After contracting polio as a child and growing up across multiple countries, Burns went on to win gold medals and set world records in swimming before completing Ironman competitions. Alongside his athletic career, he developed a parallel life as an artist whose work has been commissioned by the International Olympic Committee.
Through keynote presentations, paintings, and storytelling, Burns explores the intersection of sport, creativity, and the human spirit—showing how adversity can ignite innovation, perseverance, and possibility.
His work reflects the deeper ideals of the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games: courage, determination, and the belief that the pursuit of excellence can uplift not only individuals, but communities and organizations.
Solo Arts Heal, a MarshStream Public Broadcast Platform program, presents empowering performances about healing and resilience. Through hosted interviews, talkbacks and audience Q&A, the Solo Arts Heal program provides transformative experiences, education, community outreach and advocacy through stories that celebrate the healing power of the arts.
AnCan, hosted by Rick Davis, is about people helping people, peer to peer. Collectively and individually, AnCan provides answers, support, and navigation to empower people living with serious and chronic conditions to address their worlds. Production Manager, John Ivory.
Stephanie Weisman founded and has been the Artistic/Executive Director of The Marsh since its inception in 1989. Under her leadership, The Marsh has grown from a one-night-a-week performance series to producing 600-700 shows annually on its four stages. In addition to its developing work performance series, The Marsh’s programs include: artist-in-residencies, after-school and summer workshops for youth both onsite and in 5 SFUSD, and performance development classes, workshops and Performance Initiatives. In 1996 Stephanie spearheaded the drive to successfully buy their 12,000 sq ft facility on Valencia Street in San Francisco. This increased The Marsh’s programs four-fold as well as provided for a stable Bay Area arts organization. In 2010, The Marsh added a second venue in Berkeley. In 2020, Stephanie initiated MarshStream. She is currently at work developing her opera, Aphrodisia, with dancer, Wei Wang
Gail Schickele champions arts & sciences as a writer, speaker, consultant, and producer. In January 2020 she convened an artist collective to assist solo artists whose unique stories of physical and mental challenges manifest the healing power of The Arts. COVID inspired Stephanie Weisman to create SOLO ARTS HEAL on The MarshStream to share these outstanding stories of resilience, dramatic and comedic, for the entertainment and benefit of communities everywhere. Gail’s work in marketing, management, and production has served various theaters, festivals and events nationwide. Trained as a journalist in New York and Colorado, she has covered Colorado state politics and the environmental landscape of the Rockies. Environmental educational and advocacy work in California includes the League of Women Voters and The Climate Reality Project. Gail is honored to curate and host SOLO ARTS HEAL where artists powerful stories offer audiences great performance and ‘informance’ on issues related to health and the environment, inexorably linked.
Rick Davis, is a serial social entrepreneur with a background in finance and real estate. He was diagnosed with locally advanced prostate cancer in 2007; it was readily apparent there was inadequate support for men placed on medium and long term hormone therapy, and Rick started to remedy that. He also participated in prostate cancer support groups and recognized not only their value, but also that availability was geographically, physically and socially constrained. Virtual support groups appeared to resolve many of those constraints.